The New York mayor’s office has released preliminary figures which show revenues decreasing by less than expected during the recent “slowdown” by the New York Police Department (NYPD).
The city’s Office of Management and Budget revealed on Thursday that for the time period from 20 December to 6 January, revenue from parking and traffic tickets and summonses was down less than $5m, with revenue from tickets given by NYPD officers as opposed to traffic agents down just $1.5m.
The figures are based on tickets issued, rather than fines paid – so there is no lag period – and the administration is confident the slowdown will not result in any real revenue losses for the city, the Guardian has learned.
Amy Spitalnick, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget, said the slowdown “won’t impact City programs in any way”.
The city of New York takes around $860m in fines overall every year, of which $546m is from parking, based on 2013 figures. That makes up a tiny fraction of the overall city budget of $76bn, the majority of which comes from property and other taxes.
While it may seem as if fines handed out by police for traffic or other misdemeanors are money-grabbing operations for the city, in fact, only in parking tickets does the revenue gained outweigh the cost to the city of collection, according to Doug Turetsky, the chief of staff and communications director of the city’s Independent Budget Office.
“Most fines are money-losers for the city,” Turetsky told the Guardian. “Collection, enforcement of them. Parking tickets happen to be the exception to that rule.”
Turetsky did highlight another issue with the slowdown, though. “If the public starts to think tickets are not being written, that could affect the way the public behaves,” he said. “That’s the main reason you do fines.”
“If people start to think they’re not going to get a ticket for parking illegally, people are going to do it more at will,” he said. “That creates a different level of problem.”
The slowdown began after the 20 December shooting of two NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood. The slowdown was reportedly motivated by police opposition to the mayor, Bill de Blasio.
Police commissioner Bill Bratton said in a press conference on Monday that officers were returning to normal operations.
In statistics released Monday by the NYPD, the number of arrests, parking tickets, and summonses issued by officers implied a partial return to normal in the week beginning 5 January, compared to previous weeks. But activity still lagged nearly 40% behind the same week a year ago.
